Author Description

The purpose of this hymnal was to serve the church at its ‘growing points’. The Church is at present growing through the meeting of cultures and races, as well as through experiments in test-writing, music, and liturgy; an international hymn book with an experimental emphasis was clearly called for, and the editors have sought to include material in many styles. Not only hymns of the familiar kind will be found here, but also antiphonal canticles and folk songs. This hymnal makes available not only the hymnody of the West to the East, and of the North to the South, as did older missionary enterprises, but some of the new and vital hymnody of the Southern Hemisphere to the North, and of the East to the West. Many of the texts and tunes are unknown outside the communities which have used them up to now; some are altogether new. Songs in styles that encourage accompaniment on instruments other than the pianoforte or organ, and songs that invite antiphonal treatment also are included. The Editorial Board commends this book to all Christians who care to make use of it. For the Board and consultants, it is a celebration of that friendship between the nations, and between the different Christian bodies, which the World Council of Churches was founded to promote, and for which Faith requires constant work and prayer. It is, in itself, no more than a chapter in a much longer story, a stage in a long, arduous, and rewarding pilgrimage. But such as it is, it represents an effort to serve the churches and the Lord under whose judgment and promise all stand. Erik Routley (1917–1982) was an English Congregational minister, composer, and musicologist. He was educated at Lancing College and Magdalen and Mansfield Colleges in Oxford. He was chaplain of Mansfield (1948-1959) and then held appointments in Edinburgh and Newcastle. In 1975 he was appointed Professor of Church Music at Westminster Choir College in Princeton, N.J., where he taught until his death in 1982.